The evaluation of heart health status normally involves analyzing several functional characteristics of a left ventricle. These characteristics include ejection fraction, cardiac output, stroke volume, wall motion and wall thickness. The evaluation of heart health status may also include analysis of a right ventricle and atrium. Cardiac function analysis also usually involves image scanning a patient heart chamber of interest using an X-ray imaging device over multiple heart cycles. A contrast agent (dye) is injected into a patient to improve visualization of a chamber and the flow of the blood pool in and out of the chamber. The resulting images are 2D (two dimensional) X-ray frames over a time span. A physician reviews the 2D frames and picks a frame with the largest chamber volume (corresponding to an End Diastolic Phase) and a frame with the smallest chamber volume (corresponding to an End Systolic Phase). Multiple cardiac functional characteristics are computed with data from the two selected frames.
A physician visually inspects dynamic movement of contrast agent within a heart in acquired 2D frames and quantitative data is derived from the end diastolic and end systolic frames. However, the clinical evaluation of the frames may be subjective, time-consuming and requires extensive expertise and clinical experience for accurate interpretation and proper cardiac rhythm management. Additionally, continuous image scanning and data acquisition may unnecessarily expose patient tissue and organs to additional radiation. Known image scanning and acquisition systems typically employ a fixed time interval between frames and are unable to effectively scan patient anatomy and get optimum quality results for clinical monitoring and diagnosis, such as a stable and high resolution image with least exposure to radiation. A system according to invention principles addresses these deficiencies and related problems.